Reply #6: Southwest may need to halt expansion plans, analysts say

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-southwest-impact-20110405,0,7425200.story

As Southwest Airlines Co. scrambles to find and repair cracks in its older planes, it may have to put off immediate expansion plans to focus on fixing and replacing its aging aircraft, analysts said.

But there probably will be no major drop in Southwest's passenger traffic or long-term financial repercussions resulting from Friday's incident because it did not result in severe injuries or deaths and the airline acted quickly to ground its older planes for inspections, industry experts said.

"There is no doubt that in the short term there will be some kind of impact," said Standard & Poor's aviation analyst Betsy Snyder. "But I don't think it's going to be a long-term impact."